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“A Maelstrom of Lying”: Bret Easton Ellis and Himself

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“A Maelstrom of Lying”: Bret Easton Ellis and Himself “A maelstrom of lying”: Bret Easton Ellis and himself Filipa Basílio Valente da Silva Universidade do Porto Resumo: Bret Easton Ellis é um dos autores americanos mais conhecidos do século XXI. Tem sete romances publicados até à data e os críticos têm tentado desconstruir e compreender o seu trabalho bizarro e misterioso seguindo as mais variadas abordagens, tais como o pós-modernismo, estudos culturais, estudos feministas, entre muitos outros. Enquanto estes métodos podem ter esclarecido determinados aspetos do trabalho de Ellis, outros elementos que são, a meu ver, essenciais podem ter passado despercebidos. O objetivo deste ensaio é chamar atenção para o ponto de vista individual dos protagonistas de Ellis. Deste modo irei desafiar a fronteira entre a realidade e a ficção, e provar que, ao destacar o espaço emocional das personagens imorais e desequilibradas do escritor americano, os leitores podem vivenciar uma experiência muito mais íntima e intensa. Palavras-chave: Bret Eason Ellis; emoção; realidade; individual; crítica Abstract: Bret Easton Ellis is one of the best known American writers of the XXI century. He has published seven novels so far, and critics have been trying to solve his mysterious and bizarre work according to numerous approaches such as postmodernism, cultural studies, woman studies, among many others. Whereas these methods may have enlightened certain aspects of Ellis’ work, other elements, which are essential, have remained unnoticed. The purpose of this essay is to call attention to the individual point of view of Ellis’ protagonists. I will, thus, challenge the frontier between reality and fiction, and prove that, by bringing the emotional space of Ellis’ deranged and immoral characters to light, readers may undergo a much more intimate and intense experience. Keywords: Bret Easton Ellis; emotion; fiction; reality; individual; criticism 375 N.º 38 – 6/ 2018 | 375-390 – ISSN 2183-2242 | http:/dx.doi.org/10.21747/21832242/litcomp38v4 Filipa Basílio Valente da Silva Introduction As a scholar and lover of literature I have come across numerous types of narratives, writing styles, plots and characters. Some books have changed my way of thinking and have opened doors to completely new realities. Evidently, the influencing factors vary from person to person. There are readers who enjoy straightforward narratives with logical plots and endings, others prefer emotionally strong content like tragic outcomes, violent acts and shocking descriptions. Finally, there are those who rather read insightful and puzzling stories whose endings are ambiguous or divested of any closure. It should be noted that this is only a brief enumeration and isn’t restricted to these types of readers. The list of psychological and emotional experiences that readers undergo is, thus, endless due to the fact that each person has his/her own mental structure and personal life events. So, how do we read or study fiction? As literature researchers, we all have learnt various methods of study. The best example may be the cultural and theoretical approach. Indeed, contextualizing a novel and producing an essay according to the phenomena and the historical milestones in which it is inserted has proved to be very fruitful to the way we see the world. Moreover, the numerous schools of thought, which were created after each age, have also helped us establish some connections between authors and styles and learn more about artistic and ideological patterns. However, as we find ourselves in the year of 2018, we realize that many things have already been said and investigated. Innovative perspectives are needed, or perhaps bringing back an essence that may have been lost among these points of view. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the case of one of the most popular writers of our time, Bret Easton Ellis, who is best known for his highly controversial and crude novel American Psycho (1991). His work has been receiving numerous reactions, both negative and positive, from the academic circles, the cultural media and the reading public at large. It is worth exploring the work of this author because it has been creating turmoil and outrage among the readers due to his wide variety of irreverent structures, voices, and perspectives. The number of reviews, newspaper or magazine articles, and academic essays about his fiction is incredibly high. Yet, as we will find out, there is a pattern of points of N.º 38 – 6/ 2018 | 375-390 – ISSN 2183-2242 | http:/dx.doi.org/10.21747/21832242/litcomp38v4 376 “A maelstrom of lying”: Bret Easton Ellis and himself view. This will be my starting point, where I will give an overview of Ellis’ criticism to expose the aforementioned pattern. Then, I will propose a different method for reading his fiction, and finally, I will prove that the impact of Ellis’ stories are neither due to the realistic portrayal of historical and cultural aspects, nor to the shocking elements that permeate his novels, but rather to the intense account of personal and emotional experiences the protagonists narrate. All in all, an analysis based on the emotional and psychological space that is formed in each work. Ellis’ work: a summary/state of the art Apart from being a screenwriter and being involved in the production of TV series and films, Ellis has published seven novels (Less Than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, American Psycho, The Informers, Glamorama, Lunar Park and Imperial Bedrooms). All of them feature a male narrator-protagonist whose reality is summed up as the following: wealthy family and friends, bohemian and improper routines, trying to fit in and its consequences.1 These characteristics made Ellis one of the emblematic members of the Brat Pack2 and, consequently, one of the greatest examples of blank or minimalist fiction. It goes without saying the American writer is part of various studies associated with these two topics. Although the world that surrounds the protagonists is similar in each novel, Ellis offers the readers a variety of individuals experiencing life at different stages: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, professional life, and, lastly, family life. Despite being constantly surrounded by people and parties, the protagonists’ sense of loneliness and alienation increases and turns either into apathy or a disgust towards human relations. These feelings are transformed into violence and, consequently, the scenes of cruelty or senseless sex reach, progressively, their peak, deeply shocking the readers. These issues received a great deal of attention from the critics, who either struggled to understand or uncover the reasons for such stories, or felt insulted and accused Ellis of being a misogynist, immoral and psychotic man. Indeed, the number of essays and theses about violence in Ellis’ work makes us N.º 38 – 6/ 2018 | 375-390 – ISSN 2183-2242 | http:/dx.doi.org/10.21747/21832242/litcomp38v4 377 Filipa Basílio Valente da Silva conclude that this is one of the top issues that has been discussed up to the present. Critics have developed ideas such as violence as allegorical and a rhetorical device (cf. Serpell 2010), a transgressive element (cf. Messier 2004); they connected it to the video-horror culture (cf. Rogers 2011), to “serial” consumerism (cf. Martin 2012) and defined it as a consequence of capitalism (cf. Busonik 1993). Due to the great impact and consequences of consumerism, apart from the several essays that discussed it along with the idea of commodification or reification, there even was a comparison between American Psycho and The Great Gatsby (cf. Szumskyj 2007). Moreover, both the topic of violence and consumerism combined American Psycho and Fight Club in various research works, perhaps owing to the close date of their film adaptations’ release (cf. Wenley 2011; Hytten 2000; Michael 2009). Another matter favoured by critics has been the postmodern condition. This was mainly due to the frantic environment of consumption and superficiality, and the resulting identity fragmentation that permeates most of Ellis’ novels (cf. Harma 2014). Moreover, the exaggerated and humorous depiction of certain characters and situations made critics consider Ellis a great satirist of contemporary culture (cf. Matula 2011). Evidently, there is another aspect that made critics look at Ellis as a serious writer: the cultural and historical background.3 The reason is none other than the meticulous and detailed description that Ellis wrote of the eighties and Wall Street, the celebrity world and the nineties, and lastly, the constant reference to bands and brand names. To sum up, although the author’s work has shocked most of his readers, the critics managed to see past and within the gruesome details of sexual violence and the insane obsession with luxury products. Moving closer, and leaving the cultural and historical aspect aside, another point that has been receiving a good deal of attention are Ellis’ plots. The fact that characters jump from one novel to the other, either as cameos or as protagonists— Rules of Attraction as their meeting point— resulted in a focus on the phenomenon of intertextuality (cf. Grindstaff 2013). Glamorama’s immersion in the world of stardom, media, and hallucination made critics use the notion of simulacra and manipulation of image as their research tool or object (cf. ALB 2012; Ouzounoglou 2013). Lunar Park’s protagonist, whose N.º 38 – 6/ 2018 | 375-390 – ISSN 2183-2242 | http:/dx.doi.org/10.21747/21832242/litcomp38v4 378 “A maelstrom of lying”: Bret Easton Ellis and himself name is Bret, and who has similar friends and experiences as the author himself, gave rise to the idea of autobiography (cf. Hensgens 2006); plus, the fact that this novel involved hauntings led to works focused on ghosts and spectralizations (cf. Peeren 2012). Finally, the most popular protagonist in Ellis’ career, Patrick Bateman, whose narration is imbued in hallucinations, anxiety and grisly crimes that probably didn’t happen, brought up discussions about his unreliability as a narrator (cf.
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